State Water Board hears sharp divide over voluntary agreements, drought curtailments and protection of Delta flow base

The State Water Resources Control Board on Jan. 20 held a hybrid public workshop in Sacramento to take comment on draft Sacramento–Delta updates to the Bay‑Delta Plan, focusing on two disputed ideas: a drought curtailment or “in‑stream flow protection” provision and measures intended to protect voluntary‑agreement (VA) flows and the base they are added to from being diminished by new water supply projects.

The workshop, chaired by State Water Resources Control Board Chair Joaquin Esquivel, drew more than 120 speakers in person and online and ran through presentations by staff, four panels and a long public‑comment period. “This is the time and place for the public workshop to receive comments on the draft Sacramento Delta updates to the water quality control plan,” Esquivel said at the start of the meeting.

Why it matters: the Bay‑Delta watershed provides drinking water to millions, supports farms statewide and sustains fisheries and tribal cultural practices. Board staff described two draft approaches intended to reduce the need for emergency temporary urgency change petitions (TUCPs) during droughts and to prevent new diversions from eroding the additional flows that would be provided by the VA framework. Speakers representing tribes, fishing and environmental groups urged the board to adopt regulatory flow protections; water agencies and project operators urged a pathway that recognizes HRL/VA investments and more adaptive science.

Staff presentation and the options on the table

Diane Riddle, assistant deputy director in the board’s Division of Water Rights, introduced staff presenters Jeff Laird and Claudia Bucelli. Laird summarized the two topics for the day: (1) an in‑stream flow protection provision staff described as an alternative to an expansion of standard permit term 91 to broaden curtailments during drought; and (2) options to “protect the VA flow base” from being reduced by new or expanded diversions.

Jeff Laird said the staff proposal to protect minimum Delta outflows in very dry years would expand curtailments in order of water‑right priority (making base Delta outflows unavailable for diversion) so that the projects would not be solely responsible for meeting minimum outflows during extreme droughts. He told the board the base Delta outflow range in question is the plan’s Table 3/D‑1641 range (roughly 3,000–7,100 cubic feet per second, depending on conditions) and emphasized the provision would apply in very dry conditions, not in wet years.

On protecting VA flows from new projects, staff presented two main options in the draft updates: (1) a hard threshold under which new or expanded points of diversion would not be authorized to divert if net daily Delta outflow for Jan.–June were below 42,800 cubic feet per second, and (2) a regulatory‑pathway approach that treats new or expanded diversions the same as non‑VA projects and subject to inflow‑based and tributary protection measures (staff cited a 55% of unimpaired flow trigger in the draft staff report as one example). Jeff Laird said scientists identified 42,800 cfs as a level during Jan.–June when the VA’s intended benefits are likely to be preserved.

The Department of Water Resources and State Water Contractors presented a third approach, described by DWR and contractor scientists as a life‑cycle model pathway. DWR representatives said they are building a longfin smelt life‑cycle model and associated monitoring that they expect to complete within roughly three years; that modeling would be used to refine any flow thresholds and adaptive management approaches. DWR characterized this timeline and modeling as a way to incorporate habitat, temperature and other drivers into threshold setting rather than rely on a single proxy number.

Public comment: tribes and environmental groups press for regulatory protections; water agencies press for VA pathway

A panel from the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition and allied tribal representatives told the board the VA negotiation process excluded tribes and disadvantaged communities and urged the board to reject VA proposals that, in DTEC’s words, “fly in the face of the Board’s commitments to doing better for tribes and disadvantaged communities.” Stephanie Prufer of the Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic told the board the VAs were crafted “exclusively and behind closed doors by their signatories, government agencies and large water rights holders” and urged statutory compliance with the Porter‑Cologne Act and federal law.

Environmental and fishing groups — including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Golden State Salmon Association and Friends of the River — urged the board to adopt regulatory flow protections for the Delta. Chris Schutes of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance said the board should move forward with a regulatory update and that options 5a/6a in the staff material were “good foundations” for protecting unprotected flows under a regulatory pathway. Barry Nelson of Golden State Salmon Association said option 6a’s numeric threshold (42,800 cfs) would be “a good interim approach” but urged the board to apply a single standard for new and existing projects.

Representatives of the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Contractors urged adoption of a pathway that includes the HRL program and a scientific monitoring program that will produce lifecycle modeling to inform thresholds and adaptive management. DWR scientists said longfin smelt appear particularly responsive to outflow and argued the lifecycle approach can better integrate temperature, habitat and entrainment mechanisms. DWR staff described a three‑year schedule to develop a lifecycle model and periodic checks to report results to the board.

Project and county representatives from Solano County and other Delta‑adjacent communities pressed the board to account for local water supply and water‑quality impacts. Multiple speakers from Solano, and cities that use Lake Berryessa as a supply, described projects — some funded with state Proposition 1 money — that depend on access to delta or watershed supplies. Several Solano County speakers said strict new diversion constraints or cold‑water storage requirements would sharply reduce local supplies and could halt housing and economic plans tied to those supplies.

What speakers asked the board to do

- Environmental, tribal and many public commenters: adopt regulatory flow protections (staff’s unimpaired‑flow pathway or equivalent) and reject VAs as inadequate without enforceable flow guarantees; consider a 55%‑of‑unimpaired or higher approach as science‑based protection; require biological criteria and accountability in any adaptive management. - DWR and State Water Contractors: continue HRL plus a lifecycle model (DWR’s option 3), complete science program and use modeling to set thresholds; support adaptive, iterative implementation rather than a single absolute threshold today. - Water agencies and regional governments (ACWA and local cities/agencies): keep the HRL pathway as a viable method for producing flows and habitat; ask staff to analyze water supply impacts of any unimpaired‑flow numeric choices and to consider alternative paths that do not cause large, immediate cuts to municipal and agricultural supply.

Board staff directions and next steps

Diane Riddle and other staff told the board they will accept written comments on the two items discussed at the workshop (drought minimum outflow protections and VA base‑flow protection options) through Jan. 30, 2025, and said staff will begin a series of additional working meetings next week to dig into technical and implementation questions. Staff committed to developing a revised draft Bay‑Delta Plan update and a final staff report informed by written and oral comments; the board will consider adoption in a later board meeting.

Quotations from the record

Chair Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board, opened the meeting: “This is the time and place for the public workshop to receive comments on the draft Sacramento Delta updates to the water quality control plan.”

Jeff Laird, water resources control engineer, summarized staff framing: “These possible provisions were developed in order to help address challenges that have existed since the 1995 Bay‑Delta Plan was implemented with meeting flow‑based water quality objectives in the Delta in drought conditions.”

Stephanie Prufer, student attorney with the Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic, speaking for the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition: “The VA framework flies in the face of the Board’s commitments to doing better for tribes and disadvantaged communities.”

Barry Nelson, Golden State Salmon Association: “New diversions threaten to gulp up more and more of what’s left of unregulated delta inflow and outflow. This has to end under a regulatory path.”

Ending

Board members closed by urging continued participation in staff‑led working meetings. Staff reiterated the Jan. 30, 2025 deadline for written comments specific to the provisions discussed Jan. 20, and said they will post schedules for technical working sessions and publish a revised draft for further public review later in 2025.

Taken together, the workshop made clear the principal divide facing the board: environmental and tribal groups pressing for enforceable, numeric flow protections at or above staff’s higher ranges, and project and local government interests seeking to preserve a pathway for negotiated investments and adaptive science. Staff said it will use the next weeks of public workshops to refine analyses and implementation language the board will need to choose between those paths.